José Faus: Token Conversations
Walnut Place Laundromat, Kansas City MO
In collaboration with Sean Starowitz's Byproduct: The Laundromat
March 20 - 23, 2013
Token
Conversations, a socially engaged art project by Kansas City-based
artist José Faus produced in collaboration with Invisible Venue,
implements conversations with laundromat clientele in the production
of a social document that encapsulates pressing social issues. The
project explores the role of the artist in facilitating public
discourse and the use of a laundromat as a generative public platform.
Faus will conduct office hours in residence at the Walnut Place Laundromat (4241 Walnut Street, Kansas City) and will speak with locals about art and the role of an artist in a community, especially as these topics relate to social issues including the financial crisis, domestic policies, racism and/or gun violence, among other topics. A "laundry list" of topics will be available or participants may offer a topic of their choosing; participants will receive laundry tokens in exchange for their participation. These conversations will be aggregated in a social document produced as an unlimited edition print multiple and available for free download. Prints and a series of silk-screened recycled t-shirts, produced and laundered on site, will be available for free distribution at the culminating public event on Friday, March 23, 6 - 8pm.
SCHEDULE
Visit Walnut Place Laundromat to participate in the project and/or do your laundry:
Wednesday, March 20 10am - Noon, 4 - 7pm
Thursday, March 21 10am - Noon, 4 - 7pm
Friday, March 22 10am - 2pm, 6 - 8pm public event
Bogota, Columbia native José Faus is an artist, writer and poet based in Kansas City, MO. More than two dozen of his mural projects are featured throughout the Kansas City area, as well as in Mexico and Bolivia, for which he received a cultural ambassador grant from the U. S. State Department. Faus is a founding member of Kansas City's Latino Writers Collective; his writing has been featured in a number of anthologies including Primera Pagina: Poetry From the Latino Heartland and Cuentos del Centro: Stories From the Latino Heartland, as well as Present Magazine and Poets & Writers. In 2011 Faus received the Poets & Writers Maureen Egen Writer's Exchange Award. View his website at www.caridostudio.com.
Invisible Venue was invited to produce this project for Byproduct: The Laundromat, a series of socially engaged art projects organized by Sean Starowitz. Byproduct: The Laundromat received a 2012 Rocket Grant and is made possible through the Charlotte Street Foundation, the Spencer Museum of Art, and the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts. More information about Byproduct: The Laundromat can be found here: http://rocketgrants.org/2013/01/21/byproduct-the-laundromat/
Faus will conduct office hours in residence at the Walnut Place Laundromat (4241 Walnut Street, Kansas City) and will speak with locals about art and the role of an artist in a community, especially as these topics relate to social issues including the financial crisis, domestic policies, racism and/or gun violence, among other topics. A "laundry list" of topics will be available or participants may offer a topic of their choosing; participants will receive laundry tokens in exchange for their participation. These conversations will be aggregated in a social document produced as an unlimited edition print multiple and available for free download. Prints and a series of silk-screened recycled t-shirts, produced and laundered on site, will be available for free distribution at the culminating public event on Friday, March 23, 6 - 8pm.
SCHEDULE
Visit Walnut Place Laundromat to participate in the project and/or do your laundry:
Wednesday, March 20 10am - Noon, 4 - 7pm
Thursday, March 21 10am - Noon, 4 - 7pm
Friday, March 22 10am - 2pm, 6 - 8pm public event
Bogota, Columbia native José Faus is an artist, writer and poet based in Kansas City, MO. More than two dozen of his mural projects are featured throughout the Kansas City area, as well as in Mexico and Bolivia, for which he received a cultural ambassador grant from the U. S. State Department. Faus is a founding member of Kansas City's Latino Writers Collective; his writing has been featured in a number of anthologies including Primera Pagina: Poetry From the Latino Heartland and Cuentos del Centro: Stories From the Latino Heartland, as well as Present Magazine and Poets & Writers. In 2011 Faus received the Poets & Writers Maureen Egen Writer's Exchange Award. View his website at www.caridostudio.com.
Invisible Venue was invited to produce this project for Byproduct: The Laundromat, a series of socially engaged art projects organized by Sean Starowitz. Byproduct: The Laundromat received a 2012 Rocket Grant and is made possible through the Charlotte Street Foundation, the Spencer Museum of Art, and the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts. More information about Byproduct: The Laundromat can be found here: http://rocketgrants.org/2013/01/21/byproduct-the-laundromat/
>> SELECTED AUDIO: Download Rec 003-Laundromat
>> PRESS: Starowitz, Sean. "Byproduct: The Laundromat -- Unfolding socially-engaged art practices." Temporary Art Review, June 5, 2013.